Greater New Orleans

Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, holds up two fingers to casts a no vote to bring an abortion bill to the floor early for debate, Monday, June 24, 2013, in Austin, Texas. The bill would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy and force many clinics that perform the procedure to upgrade their facilities and be classified as ambulatory surgical centers.
((AP Photo/Eric Gay))

Wendy Davis has apparently taken the country by storm. Which is rather surprising, given that she speaks for a minority of Texans.

No matter. Davis, whose pink-sneakered filibuster briefly held up Texas legislation that bans most abortions after 20 weeks and requires they be performed in places with medical professionals on staff, is a star.

Indeed, when Davis first made headlines last month, The Associated Press had a photo cutline that gushed, "State Sen. Wendy Davis' filibuster in Texas has just elevated the issue of abortion to the national stage."

That's no typo, incidentally: clear and convincing majorities support the core of what Davis opposed. On Thursday, after weeks of overwhelmingly positive coverage for Davis, The Washington Post/ABC News released a poll that showed Americans back restricted abortion after 20 weeks by a 56-27 margin. And that total doesn't include another 10 percent of people who favor outlawing abortion all together.

Like many hot button issues, abortion remains so in part because those with views outside the mainstream dominate the conversation. That would include those who purvey information to the public under the fiction they are themselves mainstream.

Consider, for a moment, the comparative knowledge folks have of Davis and Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Gosnell was convicted on three counts of murder and one count of involuntary manslaughter, and his crime spree was the impetus for the Texas legislation. Gosnell ran a charnel house in Philadelphia where, unhindered by regulators concerned with keeping abortion legal, he was able to make sure the procedure was neither safe nor rare.

Gosnell's trial lasted 59 days. The three major network news channels devoted less than 14 minutes to it. Davis' short-lived success in blocking the Texas law, on the other hand, generated almost 41 minutes of airtime on the same networks in less than three weeks.

Texas, by the way, isn't alone in passing laws that try to reduce abortions. In 2013, at least 35 such measures have passed legislatures in 17 states. All told, 27 states now have laws on the books similar to Texas', according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute.

Should this trend continue, soon many American states will be more closely aligned with Europe. That does not mean only in historically Roman Catholic nations like Ireland or Poland. In bastions of modern secularism, such as the EU's Belgian headquarters, abortion is severely restricted after just 12 weeks.

The popular stance in America is reflected in its legislatures, if not its media. Whatever the individual merits of the mushrooming laws - and some of them, such as abortion restrictions after just six weeks, will probably strike many as extreme - such a progression indicates elected officials believe their constituents are less than comfortable with unfettered abortions. They must be reading the polls.

Not only are those occupying positions toward either end of the abortion-debate spectrum dominating the conversation, the discussion often revolves around a sliver of the procedure. For example, Davis herself claimed in her celebrated filibuster that the Texas law affects about 1 percent of all abortions performed in the state. Accepting her stat as true, is it not extremist to combat the bill?

Similarly extremist are efforts by anti-abortion forces to shut down clinics. While it is admirable lawmakers would take steps to ensure Gosnells do not emerge elsewhere, it is hard to argue a law that will reduce the number of clinics in Texas from 42 to 5 is merely a medicinal safeguard.

The same new poll that shows solid support for abortion restrictions after 20 weeks also shows 54 percent of Americans oppose making it tougher for abortion clinics to operate.

Davis' filibuster has certainly raised her profile and swollen her campaign warchest. She has reportedly raked in more than $1 million in contributions, and on Thursday traveled to Washington for the first of two scheduled visits, with fundraising prominent on her agenda.

But it is not true Davis and her agenda speak to most Americans. So long as those committed to points well removed from the center do all the talking, however, most Americans will not be heard.